THE DYNAMIC EARTH: A BLOG ABOUT GEOLOGY AND THE EARTH SCIENCES

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Tafoni!

A quick post as the semester wraps up (finally!), illustrating tafoni! Huzzah! The two pictures below are from the Wilkins Peak Member of the Green River Formation, in SW Wyoming.



Tafoni are scoopish-pits in granular rocks (like sandstones...) that are (probably) caused by weathering of differentially cemented zones in the rock.



And by the way, "tafoni" is apparently the plural...the singular is "tafone". Now you know!

EDIT: Yet more Tafoni on the internets! Check out Michael's post on his blog, Through The Sandglass!

EDIT EDIT: Jumpin' Cats! Michael is the Tafoni King at his blog...AND I HAD NO IDEA! Here and Here! Read!

5 comments:

Michael said...

Tafoni seem to be one of the high-profile topics of the 2009 geoblogosphere! Fame at last....

Marciepooh said...

Thank you! I've been wondering if there was a name for those features for years.

Eric said...

WEIRD synchronicity Michael...I just went and read your post on Tafoni! Great minds, I guess...

Michael said...

And the great minds include Gaudi - did you see the stuff I posted after visiting Barcelona? I'm also trying to remember where else I saw a piece on tafoni recently - it really is a bizarrely hot topic (or, as you point out, I should "they really are hot topics").

Eric said...

Man! So...Much...TAFONI!

And I just noticed that Brian's lil' picture on Clastic Detritus is tafoni too...

Now it's just gettin' ridiculous!